Mass. man orders tie, gets employee W4s instead

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? With a little more than two weeks to go before their wedding, Emily Dreyfuss' fiance ordered a tie and pocket square from Gap chain Banana Republic's website to go with his Navy blue suit.

What the couple got in the mail instead on Thursday would make an identity thief giddy: the confidential files of about 20 former employees, including Social Security numbers and W4 tax forms.

"We totally laughed," Dreyfuss, 29, said on Friday from her home in Cambridge, Mass.

She had misgivings about the package as soon as it arrived. It was really heavy and didn't say Banana Republic, but Gap Inc.

She and her fiancee have been buying each other presents, and she thought it may have been a really heavy piece of clothing with catalogs, said Dreyfuss, the daughter of actor Richard Dreyfuss.

Inside were three folders sealed with tape and labeled "HR Administration." They contained tax and Social Security information as well as handwritten resignation letters, doctors' notes and salary information ? seemingly the employees' entire record at the company. The employees were sales support associates and at least one made $9 an hour, Dreyfuss said.

The resignation letters were mostly from March. They were polite and positive, expressing thanks for the chance to work for the company.

Dreyfuss, who runs the home page and also writes for technology website CNET said she didn't look through everything.

"I got a queasy feeling and felt like I should stop looking at this," she said.

San Francisco-based Gap Inc. blamed the mix-up on a human mistake.

"We're taking immediate action to evaluate and strengthen our processes to prevent mis-mailings in the future and apologize for the error," spokeswoman Edie Kissko said in a statement.

Dreyfuss said a Banana Republic representative has since responded to a tweet about the mix-up and apologized. Dreyfuss was told clothing and employee information is sent out in the same type of gray plastic bag, and the two packages appear to have been mislabeled. It wasn't clear how that happened. The representative told Dreyfuss the store would look into what went wrong and inform the affected employees.

The company is sending her a self-addressed, stamped envelope to return the information.

Dreyfuss said the episode with Banana Republic raised concerns about how well the company is safeguarding customer information.

"People should know about this because it's crazy and scary," she said.

In her statement, Kissko said the company takes the confidentiality of personal information very seriously.

Dreyfuss was offered a free tie and pocket handkerchief ? a $61 value, but said she declined.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2013-06-21-Gap%20Order%20Mix-Up/id-ea4a599e8f9c43b9976a90846caab5d1

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Senate bank panel sets confirmation hearing for SEC nominees

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate Banking Committee will hold a confirmation hearing on June 27 for President Barack Obama's two nominees to serve on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the committee announced on Thursday.

Kara Stein, a Democrat, and Michael Piwowar, a Republican, would replace SEC commissioners Elisse Walter and Troy Paredes, respectively.

Stein is currently an aide to Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and a senior member of the banking panel. Piwowar is chief economist for the committee, working under the panel's ranking Republican, Mike Crapo, of Idaho.

Stein and Piwowar are expected to have fairly speedy confirmations by the U.S. Senate, and neither is considered controversial.

They would join the SEC at a critical time. The agency is under the leadership of a new chair, former federal prosecutor Mary Jo White.

This week, White said the SEC would make major changes to its settlement policy by trying to require defendants in some select cases to admit wrongdoing. That is a departure from past practice, in which the SEC has routinely in most cases allowed defendants to neither admit nor deny charges.

The change comes on the heels of criticism from some federal judges who have denied or challenged settlements on the grounds they are too weak. But defense lawyers are warning the new policy may hinder the SEC's ability to reach settlements.

All settlements must be approved by the majority of the SEC's five commissioners, meaning Stein and Piwowar's votes could be crucial.

In addition, the SEC is facing a major backlog of rulemaking that needs to be completed under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, and it is under pressure to complete rules required by a 2012 law that eases securities regulations to help small businesses raise capital.

Separately, the SEC is mulling a controversial proposal to impose new regulations on money market mutual funds.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-bank-panel-sets-confirmation-hearing-sec-nominees-184543042.html

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Adult cells transformed into early-stage nerve cells, bypassing the pluripotent stem cell stage

May 2, 2013 ? A University of Wisconsin-Madison research group has converted skin cells from people and monkeys into a cell that can form a wide variety of nervous-system cells -- without passing through the do-it-all stage called the induced pluripotent stem cell, or iPSC.

Bypassing the ultra-flexible iPSC stage was a key advantage, says senior author Su-Chun Zhang, a professor of neuroscience and neurology. "IPSC cells can generate any cell type, which could be a problem for cell-based therapy to repair damage due to disease or injury in the nervous system."

In particular, the absence of iPSC cells rules out the formation of tumors by pluripotent cells in the recipient, a major concern involving stem cell therapy.

A second advance comes from the virus that delivers genes to reprogram the adult skin cells into a different and more flexible form. Unlike other viruses used for this process, the Sendai virus does not become part of the cell's genes.

Jianfeng Lu, Zhang's postdoctoral research associate at the UW-Madison Waisman Center, removed skin cells from monkeys and people, and exposed them to Sendai virus for 24 hours. Lu then warmed the culture dish to kill the virus without harming the transforming cells. Thirteen days later, Lu was able to harvest a stem cell called an induced neural progenitor. After the progenitor was implanted into newborn mice, neural cells seemed to grow normally, without forming obvious defects or tumors, Zhang says.

Other researchers have bypassed the pluripotent stem cell stage while turning skin cells into neurons and other specialized cells, Zhang acknowledges, but the new research, just published in Cell Reports, had a different goal. "Our idea was to turn skin cells to neural progenitors, cells that can produce cells relating to the neural tissue. These progenitors can be propagated in large numbers."

The research overcomes limitations of previous efforts, Zhang says. First, the Sendai virus, a kind of cold virus, is considered safe because it does not enter the cell's DNA, and it is killed by heat within 24 hours. (This is quite similar to the fever that raises our temperature to remove cold virus.) Second, the neural progenitors have a greater ability to grow daughter cells for research or therapy. Third, the progenitor cells are already well along the path toward specialization, and cannot become, say, liver or muscle cells after implantation. Finally, the progenitors can produce many more specialized cells.

The neurons that grew from the progenitor had the markings of neurons found in the rear of the brain, and that specialization can also be helpful. "For therapeutic use, it is essential to use specific types of neural progenitors," says Zhang. "We need region-specific and function-specific neuronal types for specific neurological diseases."

Progenitor cells grown from the skin of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) or spinal muscular atrophy patients can be transformed into various neural cells to model each disease and allow rapid drug screening, Zhang adds.

Eventually, the process could produce cells used to treat conditions like spinal cord injury and ALS.

"These transplantation experiments confirmed that the reprogrammed cells indeed belong to cells of the intended brain regions and the progenitors produced the three major classes of neural cells: neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes," Zhang says. "This proof-of-principle study highlights the possibility to generate many specialized neural progenitors for specific neurological disorders."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison. The original article was written by David Tenenbaum.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Jianfeng Lu, Huisheng Liu, Cindy?Tzu-Ling Huang, Hong Chen, Zhongwei Du, Yan Liu, Mohammad?Amin Sherafat, Su-Chun Zhang. Generation of Integration-free and Region-Specific Neural Progenitors from Primate Fibroblasts. Cell Reports, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2013.04.004

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/bpJTNujD9Uc/130502131713.htm

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Inspired By Coca-Cola, Instagram Reveals a Subtle Logotype Revamp

Today, when Instagram announced its new people-tagging feature, it focused on the new UI changes within the app. But if you look closely, you'll also see another change: a new script, designed by Denver typographer Mackey Saturday.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/aDISwQoMd_Q/inspired-by-coca-cola-instagram-reveals-a-subtle-logot-487401581

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Sony Xperia ZL Review: Behind the Curve Everywhere It Counts

Sony's Xperia Z and ZL, were the two most exciting smartphones at this past January's Consumer Electronics. But that feels like years ago now, and with the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 now on the scene, it takes a lot more to be a top-tier device.

What Is It?
One of Sony's two flagship smartphones (the other being the Xperia Z). It has a 5-inch 1080p screen, a 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, two gigs of ram, expandable storage, a 13MP camera, NFC, an IR blaster for controlling your TV, and LTE. (Note: We tested the international version, which was not LTE equipped). It runs Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) with Sony's "Experience Flow UI" (coughskincough) on top.

Who's It For?
People looking for a... smartphone? An Android smartphone. That has the name Sony on it. In fact, it's probably almost entirely for Sony diehards.

Design
The front of the phone is almost 100 percent screen, with very little bezel at all, and look! No hardware/capacitive navigation buttons. Sony went for the on-screen button look, like stock Android, which we much prefer. But don't worry, there's still plenty o' button. The power on/off button is extremely prominent, smack dab in the middle of the phone on the side. Its placement is, in a word, "unique." And, in two words, "incredibly inconvenient." There's also a volume rocker, along with another button that we wish all phones had: a physical, two-step camera button. Very nice.

The back of the phone is slightly curved plastic?it feels like a cheaper HTC One, but the plastic is at least very grippy. The camera lens juts out a little bit (other manufacturers have managed to make it flush with the back), and next to it is the speaker. Down at the bottom is a little panel that flips up, allowing you to swap in micro SIM cards and micro SD cards at will. The battery is not replaceable.

Using It

The way the Xperia ZL functions is actually pretty similar to stock Android in most ways?you get into Google Now by swiping up from the home button, for instance. However, the software's similarities are obscured somewhat by animations and little flourishes (e.g. when you remove an item from your desktop the trashcan's lid opens and closes) that only serve to slow things down. Other additions are genuinely useful, for example shortcuts to mini-apps (notepad, timer, calculator) in the task switcher, and Sony's robust power management solution.

Again, having a dedicated button for opening up the camera app and firing off photos is tremendously convenient. The IR blaster for controlling your TV works well (better than Samsung or HTC's apps, generally) but it's missing some devices (such as Roku) which will limit its utility to some. The keyboard it comes with is solid to type on, but its autocorrect is all over the place. Call quality, unfortunately, is pretty lousy (we tested it on T-Mobile's network).

The Best Part
Probably the interface on the camera app. It's really quite good. It's intuitively laid out and it's really easy to quickly switch between modes. We don't generally go in for in-camera effects or filters, but Sony has actually made some interesting ones. Sketch makes your photos look like drawing (above), Harris Shutter does a crazy ghosting effect (below), Partial Color lets you do the "Pleasantville effect," where only color comes out of black and white, and Kaleidoscope is... well, you can figure that one out. They're gimmicks, sure, but they're fun gimmicks. The other photo modes are easy to navigate, too. What the app isn't, however, is fast.

Tragic Flaw
When we did our hands-on at CES we noticed some lag and stuttering. We'd assumed it was a pre-production problem. It wasn't. Five months later and, despite the solid processor, this phone doesn't feel fast. It's fine once you're in an app (HD games such as Temple Run Oz and Inertia HD played smoothly), but getting there is slow and laggy, fraught with occasional long pauses. Once again, this is an overwrought third-party UI bringing what should be a very fast and capable phone to its knees.

This Is Weird...
You know what a phone shouldn't do? Hurt your ear when you use it as a phone. The little slit at the top of the glass that makes way for the speaker is really sharp. Not sharp enough to cut you, but definitely sharp enough to scrape you a little if you're not careful. We saw this on the LG Optimus G as well. Bad design.

Test Notes

• While we liked the camera app (see above), the camera itself is another story, and it's rather a sad one. It really struggles with dynamic range, frequently blowing out highlights. There's a significant lack of sharpness and clarity, especially in video. Low light shots are very noisy. HDR video doesn't do much except make the camera struggle more with focus and lighting. We had such high hopes for Sony's newest Exmor R sensor, but it really didn't live up. You can see our photo/video samples here, compared against the One and the S4.
• The screen, which is Sony's much-hyped Mobile Bravia Engine 2, is also a disappointment. It's certainly sharp enough, and colors are excellent?maybe the best we've seen?all except the most important one: Black. There is a ton of light-bleed, and even at just 50 percent brightness, the blacks are closer to gray. When you put it next to the Galaxy S4, the HTC One, or even the Nexus 4, there's simply no comparison.
• Out of the box, battery performance is sub-par, easily outlasted by the One and the S4, and that's without LTE, mind you. However, once you start engaging the power management settings, you can pretty easily make it through the day. Stamina mode disables data when your screen is off, but if there's an app you really need notifications from (Google Voice, for example), you can white list it. Or you can use location-based Wi-Fi, which only turns your Wi-Fi radio on when you're in range of a saved network. It's actually the best implementation of power management we've seen. Enabling the Stamina mode took my remaining standby time from four hours to 32 hours. Really smart.
• The external speaker is pretty lousy. Listening to Atoms For Peace made Thom Yorke sound like he was singing through a sheet of cellophane. A fair amount of static and a fair lack of clarity, too. Everybody is playing catchup with the HTC One on this front.
• The front-facing camera is on the bottom of the phone, below the screen. Which is different. Doesn't really matter when you're in landscape mode, though.

Should I Buy It?
I'm afraid not. This is a phone we were ready and even wanting to like, and if Sony had released it at CES rather than merely announce it and then wait five months, we'd probably have liked it a lot more, but that's how quickly technology is evolving in the mobile space. The HTC One and the Galaxy S4 are simply better than this phone in almost every way, and that's all there is to it. Sony is moving in the right direction, it's just too slow in getting there.

Even if you did like most of what this phone has to offer, you should probably wait for the Xperia Z, which is virtually identical inside, except it's slimmer and waterproof. The Xperia ZL is available as an unlocked device directly from Sony and at some AT&T and T-Mobile stores. The price? An ouchie $760. Or, if you happen to be on Cincinnati Bell, you can get it for $250 with a two-year contract. We wouldn't do it. [Sony]

• Sony Xperia ZL Specs

  ? Network: Unlocked (work with AT&T/T-Mobile) or Cincinnati Bell
  ? OS: Android 4.1 with Experience Flow UI
  ? CPU: 1.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro
  ? Screen: 5-inch 1920x1080 Bravia Mobile Engine 2 (441PPI)
  ? RAM: 2GB
  ? Storage: 16 micro SD up to 32GB
  ? Camera: 13MP rear / 2MP front
  ? Battery: 2370mAh Li-Ion
  ? Dimensions: 5.18 x 2.75 x 0.39 inches
  ? Weight: 5.33 ounces
  ? Price: $760 unlocked, or $250 with two-year Cincinnati Bell contract

Source: http://gizmodo.com/sony-xperia-zl-review-behind-the-curve-everywhere-it-c-486728473

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Bangladesh factory building collapse kills over 70, injures hundreds

DHAKA (Reuters) - An eight-storey block housing factories and a shopping center collapsed on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital on Wednesday, killing more than 70 people and injuring hundreds, a government official said.

Fire fighters and army personnel worked frantically through the morning at the Rana Plaza building in Savar, 30 km (19 miles) outside Dhaka, to rescue people trapped inside.

One fireman told Reuters that about 2,000 people were in the building when the upper floors jolted down on top of each other.

Bangladesh's booming garment industry has been plagued by fires and other accidents for years, despite a drive to improve safety standards. In November last year, 112 workers were killed in a blaze at a factory in an industrial suburb of Dhaka.

"It looks like an earthquake has struck here," said one resident as he looked on at the chaotic scene of smashed concrete and ambulances making their way through the crowds of workers and wailing relatives of those still inside.

"I was at work on the third floor, and then suddenly I heard a deafening sound, but couldn't understand what was happening. I ran and was hit by something on my head," said Sohra Begum a worker at one of the garment factories.

M.M. Niazuddin, the government's health secretary, told Reuters that at least 76 people were confirmed dead. Another official said hundreds were being treated for injuries.

Mohammad Asaduzzaman, in charge of the area's police station, said factory owners appeared to have ignored a warning not to allow their workers into the building after a crack was detected in the block on Tuesday.

Buildings in the crowded city of Dhaka are sometimes erected without permission and many do not comply with construction regulations. Dozens died when a garment factory collapsed in the same area eight years ago.

(Reporting by Andrew Biraj, Serajul Quadir and Ruma Paul; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/garment-factory-building-collapses-bangladesh-25-dead-tv-051140268.html

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Pinterest Tweaks Its New Look, Improves Search And Brings Features Like Pinned From And Mentions Back

While Pinterest is still rolling out its brand new look to users, it decided to listen to some feedback along the way and make some tweaks. Since the site relies heavily, or completely, on its users pinning things to boards like crazy, some features that were dropped from the new design were re-added due to popular demand. One of the features that caused the community to clammer the most was “Pinned By,” which let people see who originally pinned an item. This was a way to discover new people to follow and Pinterest has brought it back: Additionally, the mentioning friends feature using an @ symbol has returned, yet another way to discover new people to follow. Notice a trend here? It seems like the new design was limiting users on how they could find new friends and boards to interact with. The company says that finding friends from Twitter and Facebook that are on Pinterest is back, too. Other than the features that were reintroduced, Pinterest has improved its search functionality by adding auto-suggest, something that helps people out when looking for things. This has been a popular feature on Google’s search product, making the experience way less aggravating than looking at an empty white box for minutes: Along with search, Pinterest has moved your recent activity notifications, including older ones, to the top right corner, another move that could increase engagement. Things that the company are thinking on and might roll out soon are rearranging pins and creating a board within a board. Let’s call that feature “Boardception.” Still, it’s clear that remaining true to the original experience tops all new bells and whistles. Other social sites like Twitter and Facebook tend to roll out features slowly, getting instant feedback from people along the way before things are released to the masses. By letting users opt-in to trying out the new look, Pinterest gets beta testers who are ready, willing and able to voice their complaints, since that’s what people end up voicing anyways. If you’re still rocking the old design on Pinterest, just click “Get it now” after you log in:

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/prgjDM6zOAo/

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